


too many war wounds and not enough wars

by cat (rileyfinns)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:41:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7862194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rileyfinns/pseuds/cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike's tired of losing friends. Nancy's just tired. (takes place like, ep five/ep six, around there)</p>
            </blockquote>





	too many war wounds and not enough wars

This wasn't supposed to happen again.

That was the perk. Of having a superhero best friend. This _wasn't_ supposed to happen again, it shouldn't have been _possible_.

They - Mike and Dustin, at least - are going to have to go to the woods. Again. And look for their friend. Again. How many more times?

No more times. No one else is going to get lost.

Besides, Eleven isn't even really lost. Will was taken by something, a _thing_ , the Demogorgon. El left of her own accord. Which, sure, stings, but she's not gone. She has superpowers. She can kick the Demogorgon's _ass_. She was just scared for them before, probably.

Mike huffs, runs a hand through his hair. Looks at her bed. Can't stand to look at it. Tears it apart.

It's too much. It's like an anvil in his chest and he feels helpless, so helpless, so stuck. His friends are gone, again, and he can't help them, again, and it hurts, again, again, again, still, Will and Eleven and it  _hurts._ It's a physical pain.

And Lucas isn't gone, but he's inaccessible, and Mike doesn't  _want_ to access him, anyway, but that weighs, too, makes the anvil heavier, too.

He's tired. He's is so tired. He's so tired of losing his friends, he's tired of chasing after them, and he feels Eleven's absence in the house. He feels it like a hole, a gap, an organ torn out of his body, the missing person in his house. He's gotten so used to it being five of them.

Of course, tonight it still is, but he doesn't know that.

 

• • •

  
Nancy knows what it looks like. There's a boy in a bed and a gun under her pillow. She _knows_. She knows how her parents are going to react if they find out, so they just... can't find out. Hopefully, the locked door will be enough.

Yeah, right.

It doesn't matter, though. It doesn't. Because she knows what it looks like, but she knows what a lot more looks like now, too. She's seen too much tonight. She knows what it looks like, the place without a name, the creature without a face. She knows.

She knows what Barb saw the night she disappeared.

And it's too much.

And, distantly, she knows it's selfish. She's dating Steve and she has Jonathan in her bed. Her parents are already worried about her and she has a gun under her pillow. It is so, so unfair to them, and she knows.

She just doesn't care.

If there's any night to be selfish, it's tonight.

She guesses it's not fair to Jonathan, either. To leech some warmth off of him like this, but she's just so cold. She's so cold.

She wonders if Barb's cold. She probably is. Must be, actually. Nancy had been there for a little bit - even though it felt like longer, so much longer, impossibly longer - and she's still so cold.

Well. Barb's cold or she's dead.

She died cold. That's not right.

There's not a right way to die, but it'd be better. To die warm. Unafraid.

She thinks that maybe she'd like to die fighting now, not that she'd really like to die at all, but if she has to. It seems like the most suitable way to, after what she's seen, what she's survived, but Barb probably didn't get the luxury of surviving. She died cold and afraid.

And then it's all she can see. It mashes in her head. Hiding from the creature. Barb hiding from the creature. Running from the creature. Barb running from the creature. Escaping from the creature. Barb -

The creature. Its faceless maw. _Maws_. Multiple. So many mouths. Too many. So many to eat her with, so many to eat Barb with.

She opens her eyes. She's not sleeping tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> i got fucked up and wrote this in 20 minutes please excuse any poor characterization (bc im not even done so its probably like. Not The Best)


End file.
